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Murkowski Resolution Update

It looks like the long-awaited Murkowski Resolution of Disapproval will be up for vote shortly. Many readers have taken action to urge their Senators to cosponsor the bill (if you haven't, do so here) and these efforts have helped bring the bipartisan support up to 41 cosponsors.

The Murkowski Resolution is an important measure to stop a backdoor cap and trade plan from being implemented by the EPA. The EPA would love nothing more than to have free-reign in regulating CO2. That means a host of new regulations heaping new costs on energy and the price of doing business in the United States. Worst of all, this would all be done by un-elected bureacrats who are not accountable to taxpayers and would have little to restrain their decisions.

The Murkowski Resolution would stop the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases, saving jobs and money during these tough economic times.

Here is a list of Senators who need to hear from you today - please call and urge them to vote "Yes" on the Murkowski Resolution. You can find a list of talking points here.

Senator Webb (D-VA): 804-771-2221

Senator Brown (R-MA): 617-565-3170

Senator Bayh (D-IN): 317-554-0750

Senator Casey (D-PA): 717-231-7540

Senator Specter (D-PA): 717-782-3951

Senator Conrad (D-ND): 701-258-4648

Senator Dorgan (D-ND): 701-250-4618

Senator Tester (D-MT): (406) 252-0550

Senator Baucus (D-MT): 406-657-6790

Senator Pryor (D-AR): 501-324-6336

Senator Brown (D-OH): 614-469-2083

Senator Johnson (D-SD): 605-332-8896

Senator Rockefeller (D-WV): 304-347-5372

Senator Byrd (D-WV): 304-342-5855

Senator McCaskill (D-MO): 314-367-1364

Senator Bennet (D-CO): 303-455-7600

Senator Begich (D-AK): 907-271-5915

Senator Collins (R-ME): 207-784-6969

Senator Snowe (R-ME): 207-786-2451

Additional information about some myths surrounding this important resolution can be found here. And FreedomWorks has also posted commentary about the Murkowski Resolution here.

This week the lawsuit over the definition of “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) under the Clean Water Act (CWA) took its next step at the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. The parties challenging this massive power grab include dozens of states and business groups. In their filings to the court, the challengers spelled out the illegality and unconstitutionality of the rule as well as describing the corrupt and dishonest means the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) used to rush the rulemaking to completion.

On Tuesday, the Obama administration’s attempt to seize control of the nation’s energy infrastructure faced its latest day in court before the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The so-called Clean Power Plan (CPP), which would more accurately be described as the Creating Poverty Plan for its increased energy costs that fall hardest on poor Americans, is the centerpiece of President Obama’s global warming agenda. It seeks to impose massive regulatory costs on the nation’s economy in order to supposedly prevent less than 0.02 degrees of temperature increase by 2100.

When calculating the future impacts of government action, the federal government has very specific rules about how the calculation should be done. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) clearly states that when calculating the cost of future impacts a standard “discount rate” of 7% should be used (a discount rate is used to take account of the fact that $10 today is worth more than $20 10 years from now). But when it comes to global warming regulation, that 7% rate is a problem for bureaucrats. With a 7% discount rate, the present cost of future global warming is virtually zero, even using the federal government’s excessively alarmist models. What’s a radical federal bureaucrat to do when math says that global warming will have virtually no negative economic effect? Well, they take a page from Common Core and change how they do the math.

Have you noticed how the price of electronics and appliances like TVs, refrigerators, computers, or cell phones have been continuous declining as a result of technological progress, but the cost of new cars has been increasing? This is not some special quirk of the car market; it is the result of a deliberate policy by the federal government, prodded by radical environmentalists, to increase the cost of purchasing a new car. One of the chief mechanisms for this war on affordability are Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) mandates, which cost consumers tens of billions of dollars per year. Punishingly high CAFE standards have become a weapon of choice for radical leftists in their efforts to dictate how Americans must live.

Have you ever heard of a school where students are given credit on a math test for an A on a history test? If that sounds preposterous to you, you may be surprised to hear that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) uses this logic when proposing new regulations. In the process of calculating the benefits of proposed regulation, the EPA also counts benefits from other regulations, essentially double counting benefits that are created elsewhere. With this slight-of-hand, EPA gives the false impression that the benefits of new regulations outweigh the costs. The bureaucrats at EPA then use this as propaganda to force through even more of their destructive regulation.

Regulatory agencies have entered the space of copyright law and have tipped the balance of the intellectual property system. Now, it is somehow unclear that agency regulations designed to protect health, safety, and the environment have absolutely nothing to do with copyright law. As with many threats to the balance of intellectual property, Section 1201 is responsible for tipping the scale.

In October 2015, the EPA announced a new standard for ground-level ozone, tightening its stringent existing standard even more. It set the new standard at 70 parts per million (0.0070% of the atmosphere), a 9% decrease from the previous standard of 75 ppm established in 2008. Along with nearly 1000 counties nationwide that may not meet this new standard, one-third of all US counties, you’ll find at least 26 national parks. Does it seem ridiculous to you that the EPA has created a situation where some of the most rural and pristine areas of the United States could be lumping in the same category with the most densely-populated and industrialized? Well, then you don’t know the EPA.

On Wednesday, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing to examine employee misconduct at the EPA. Misconduct has continued at the EPA despite repeated reform efforts and multiple hearings. Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) opened the hearing by calling the EPA “one of the most toxic places in the federal government to work.” That is a big claim, and one that should alarm conservatives and libertarians who consciously worry about corruption, protectionism, and bureaucracy in the federal government.

On the eve of the March 30 oral argument in U.S. Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes, a key Supreme Court case that will determine the rights of landowners to challenge the federal bureaucracy's assertion of regulatory jurisdiction over their land, FreedomWorks Foundation Executive Director Curt Levey commented: